I’ve recently been inspired (by the Velociraptor Android App for google maps) to fill in some missing OSM speed limit data in my local area. I’ve been using the ITOWorld Speed Limit map (and my own driving experience) to see which roads need doing nearby but I was wondering, more out of curiosity than anything else, what the nationwide situation with regard to speed limits was?
Does anyone know roughly what proportion of UK roads have had speed limits added so far, and how that proportion varies with region of the country and (perhaps more importantly) type of road?
I can’t give an up-to-date answer but here’s the raw results of a query for May 2015: length of road in km, length of road with maxspeed tags. I’ve ordered it by percent completion of speedlimits as this tends to pick out the more usual highway tags. and I’ve pruned some of the rubbish outliers.
As well as using ITO you could search for uncompleted maxspeed using overpass. Here’s an example for English motorways: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/hU4. One particular one is the Ellesmere Port stretch of the M53 which I’ve driven along recently but no idea of limits!
A more complicated problem is that speed limits keep changing 60=>50, 40 limits extended etc. These are harder to catch.
It might also be worth raising this query on the talk-gb mailing list. I’m sure it is of broad interest. From the 2015 figures I’d say that sorting out motorways, primaries & trunks seems feasible.